Today, the Atlanta Regional Commission showcased the recipients of this year’s Regional Excellence Awards. These awards are given annually to communities and organizations in metro Atlanta that are employing visionary planning principles to create great places for the people that live and work there.

At our State of the Region, we awarded four categories and an honorable mention.

Visionary Planning

Building the Daily Community

The 2045 Unified Plan

Gwinnett County

Gwinnett County has grown quickly and steadily over the past several decades, transforming from a primarily rural and suburban area on the outskirts of Atlanta to a vibrant, diverse community with a distinct identity of its own.

The 2045 Unified Plan focuses on how to accommodate Gwinnett’s growing population while maintaining its high quality of life.

The plan is oriented around the idea of Building the Daily Community— a concept of development and design principals that create vibrant, healthy places where a variety of people want to live. It also employs the 15-minute city model where jobs are closer to homes, recreation, opportunities and amenities. Leaning on both, the community came together to prioritize investments to transform and establish walkable centers across Gwinnett County’s unincorporated areas.

Innovative Development

The Melody

Partners for Home, City of Atlanta, and Atlantica Properties

The Melody, an innovative community, envisioned by City of Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and delivered through the Mayor’s Rapid Housing Initiative, is a bold approach to caring for the city’s unhoused population.

The Melody was built to be a permanent supportive housing community. Located on Forsyth Street in Downtown Atlanta, 40 tiny homes were built from repurposed shipping containers in just four months from inception to completion. Each windowed unit overlooks a courtyard and is equipped with its own bed, oven, sink, refrigerator, microwave, TV, and bathroom with a shower.

The Melody is a winning example of a creative solution to address homelessness.  It is already serving as a model for other cities, while offering hope to some of our cities most vulnerable residents.

Great Place

Midtown Public Space Network

Midtown Alliance

Midtown Public Space Network is a mixed-use district in Midtown that has enjoyed a steady increase in its public space inventory through the transformation of underutilized transit plazas, vacant lots, and parking lots.

The network provides free amenities and creative activities for people of various ages, abilities, and interests to connect and share experiences.

These efforts, combined with bustling street level commercial activity have created a compelling, vibrant place where balanced growth and quality of life go hand-in-hand in Atlanta’s midtown.

Livable Center

Clarkston Greenway Feasibility Study

City of Clarkston and Perkins & Will

Clarkston leaders initiated the Greenway Feasibility Study to identify ways to connect people to parks, greenspaces, commercial corridors, and popular destinations. To ensure that as many residents as possible could participate in the planning process, Clarkston hired community engagement ambassadors to translate, interpret and distribute information to its diverse population.

Phase 1 will showcase a “model mile” built for residents’ leisure and recreation use, incorporating wayfinding and placemaking components.

The trails and paths will ultimately promote cultural vibrancy by increasing equitable access to parks, nature, and the community at-large.

Honorable Mention

The North Woods Project

City of Avondale Estates

This once neglected acre-plus-area of woodlands is tucked adjacent to Lake Avondale and is traversed by Cobbs Creek and wetland areas.

While initiating a mitigation project to filter stormwater from Berkely Road and reduce sediment and pollutants in the creek and lake, the City transformed the underutilized plot to create a community amenity in the heart of its historic residential area.

For additional information about the 2024 Regional Excellence Awards, visit
atlantaregional.org/regional-excellence-awards/.